


Of Memories and Languages

by trustingHim17



Series: Moving On [4]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst and Humor, Gen, Hidden Talents, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Worried Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:00:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23861932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17
Summary: Sherlock Holmes knows everything about everyone, doesn't he? Occasionally, Watson finds something the great detective just can't deduce.
Series: Moving On [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719565
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	Of Memories and Languages

Sherlock Holmes did not always know everything about everyone. His prideful nature would never let him admit that deduction could not tell him everything, but for all that I shared rooms with the master detective and had for many years, there were some things he did not know about even me. Some things he simply could not deduce, and periodically, one such fact would become pertinent. He took pains to hide this from the world, but he could not hide all of them from me. Of the very few occasions this occurred (I could in all likelihood count them on one hand), all of them gave me a great deal of amusement, and most of them had something to do with me, making his consternation all the greater.

One of these occasions was late summer, 1900.

That summer was one of the hottest London had ever seen, and the soaring temperatures combined with much lower than usual humidity had the entire city slowed to a crawl. Doctors were in high demand with the heat, resulting in my spending long mornings volunteering among several local hospitals and, when the call came, occasionally helping another doctor with his rounds.

My old wounds didn’t mind the heat a bit—in fact, they rather enjoyed it. The constant throb in my shoulder had become barely noticeable in the last few days—but the dry heat seemed to stoke my memories, and the images I denied in the daytime worked themselves out each night, resulting in very little sleep. I endeavored to hide this from Holmes, of course, as it wouldn’t do for him to take into his head that I needed to slow down. The last time he had tried _that_ had been quite enough for the both of us, I believed. Hiding the lack of sleep did little to wake me up, however, and by July 27, I don’t believe I had slept more than six hours in the previous sixty.

This undoubtedly did nothing for my low mood that day. A long morning at Charing Cross treating all sorts of heat-related injuries—everything from dehydration to heatstroke to water-related injuries from people going so far as to swim in the canal and at the river’s edge to cool off—had culminated in a boating accident. One of the smaller ships hadn’t been paying enough attention and, as a result, had drifted into a group of young men.

It had taken hours to treat all their injuries, and the similarities had piled up too high to ignore. The date, the heat, the _dry_ heat, the line of patients of an age matching my memories—I took myself off for a walk after the last patient had been stabilized, knowing I would be of no help in my current condition. Memories of war and battle and blood and desert were forcing their way to the forefront of my thoughts, and if I didn’t find a way to release them soon, they would take over. I could hardly afford that when trying to aid others, no matter that it was several hours before I usually left. I could quite easily ignore the effects of little sleep on myself, but I could not in good conscience ignore the fact that jumping at an innocuous noise behind me could have disastrous consequences for a surgery patient.

Over the years, I had gone on enough walks to acquire a favorite path, one which took me on a wandering way through Hyde Park before looping back towards Baker Street, and I fell into that route as I left Charing Cross, knowing it would eventually take me back home without my having to think about it. This would leave me free to examine those memories, and, hopefully, bury them back in the hole from which they had come before I had to face Holmes. He was finishing up a case and would likely require my assistance that afternoon.

The memories of war never truly fade, despite what many try to believe. They sink into the past, lying in wait for something to bring them out again, then rush out to overwhelm when awakened. I recall very little of my path home that day, sunk in my thoughts as I was. I had been trying for days to stay busy enough not to think, only to relive them at night, so maybe facing the memories in daylight would allow me to sleep, as daylight remembrances were never as painful as nighttime—or that’s what I told myself, at least. Letting them out now, however, made me completely oblivious to anything around me, hence my taking a path I knew well. I had no wish to find myself in the East End or some other dangerous neighborhood because I hadn’t been mindful of my route.

It had been some time since war had last intruded on my thoughts so blatantly, and recent events had brought up many memories that hadn’t seen the light of day in several years. The people on the London streets around me soon faded from my awareness as I let my thoughts drift. Had it really been twenty years since that disastrous battle? India and Afghanistan, Maiwand and Kandahar and Peshawar all came to life around me as I walked, seeing and hearing again the sights and sounds from so many years before.

Something jarred me out of my musings—to this day, I know not what it was—and I found myself staring at my front door, people walking around me as Baker Street stretched away on either side. My walk had done little good, so continuing my walk would do even less, and while I knew I was physically in London, my thoughts continually strayed twenty years and four thousand miles away, back to desert sands, dry heat, gunfire, pain, and fear. I unlocked the door hoping Holmes was still out on his latest case. I was in no shape to be a worthwhile companion, much less of any help with any aspect of his case.

Providence was with me, for I found both Mrs. Hudson and Holmes gone, and I remembered then that Mrs. Hudson had mentioned something about a charity lunch today.

With a sigh of relief that I had the flat to myself, I settled at my desk with an empty notebook. Writing had always been cathartic for me, and with the walk not helping, I hoped getting my memories on paper would prevent them overtaking my thoughts. I soon lost myself in the scratching of the pen.

Fully engrossed in my writing, I slipped into the memories themselves, writing everything that came to mind. I was no longer in our flat in London. I was in India. I was in Maiwand. I was in Kandahar. I was treating my comrades, living in a tent, listening to the Ghazis, teaching Murray, retreating, fighting, losing, hurting. I was _there_ , and being there by choice of writing lent a sort of control that lessened the fear, the pain, and reduced it to words on a page. Words on a page could not take over my mind at inopportune times. Words on a page could not dictate my actions when something startled me. Words on a page did not own me. I owned them, and I controlled them, releasing them into the journal’s pages where they could trouble me no more.

And it was for this reason I never heard the door below open and shut, nor did I hear Holmes calling for Mrs. Hudson before bounding up the stairs.

“Already writing up the case, Watson?” he said behind me. “I thought you organized your notes last night?”

Something in the back of my mind informed me that someone was talking to me, but I paid it no heed. That was there, and I was here, in Peshawar, wondering what had become of my orderly, Murray.

“Watson?”

Again, I didn’t answer. The ride on the horse had been so long, and though my memories of the time were hazy, I did remember Murray having to hold me on. My shoulder ached, so, that I could only grasp with the one hand, and I would have fallen off many a time if it weren’t for Murray. My pen stopped for a moment to rub my aching shoulder, but then the next memory rose, and I hurried to write it down.

“Alright, Watson?” By this point, he had undoubtedly deduced what was on my mind, but never before had I written like this in front of him. Never before had I been so engrossed in my writing that I failed to answer when he spoke to me. That same part of my mind that had already informed me that someone was speaking to me chimed in again, saying the someone sounded a trifle worried and I had better answer.

So I did, my thoughts primarily on the paper in front of me as I unconsciously turned a page.

 _“Of course.”_ Something about those words sounded strange, but…the voice _had_ asked if I was alright, and I was alright, so my answer had been correct. I disregarded the strangeness as I detailed an encounter with some local children. Silence reigned behind me.

“Watson, where are you?”

Strange, a small part of me thought. I’m here, of course. Where else would I be? This child is injured. I have to help him. It’s not his fault his father is off at this war. Nor is it his fault that his father is Afghani and therefore a part of the army considered my enemy. I do have to hurry, however. My commanding officer is due back any minute, and I would rather avoid the argument that would come from his finding me treating a civilian, and an Afghani civilian, at that.

Suddenly, a presence leaned over my shoulder, and I tensed, ready for an argument over treating the child’s injuries. The presence backed off after a moment, however, leaving me slightly confused but grateful. Bandage secured, the child scampered off as I gathered my remaining supplies.

“Why do you treat them?” the voice asked.

Finally, a question I can answer. _“Because it is not their fault their country is at war.”_

Another long pause filled one space, while the other became a deafening fusillade. That final battle had been horrible, the retreat even worse.

“How many languages do you speak?”

 _“Where did that question come from?”_ We had more casualties in the retreat than we did in the battle itself, and the shouting of the villagers never stopped all through that long, dark night. My grasp of Farsi and Pashto and a couple of the tribal languages had increased exponentially that night, no matter that I had tried to block it all out. My Latin teacher so many years ago had been right after all: one truly does learn the coarser language first.

“Watson, come back.”

Come back? I wondered. Come back from where? I’m still here, still trying to follow the retreat and treat injuries at the same time.

A sudden stab of pain left me breathless. I was on the ground, Murray leaning over me, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding. A strange sound filled the background, reminding me of the skittering of a pen, and I wondered what I was hearing. No one in the desert had paper and pen anymore, and it made no sense that I should be able to hear it over the constant gunfire.

My own bandage secured, Murray helped me to my feet, ignoring my insistence that he leave me behind. The pain radiated from a spot barely two inches from my jugular. I would not be conscious long, and it was more important that Murray get out of here.

Doctor “Watson, can you hear me?”

Murray was talking to me, demanding I stay awake. My awareness had focused to a small window: the arm under my uninjured shoulder, one foot in front of the other, desert sand, heat. I somehow found it in me to answer.

_“Yes, I can hear you.”_

My memory was beginning to fail. Had we been stumbling along for an hour? Or a week? Surely, not a week, but I suppose it could have been. I could feel myself slipping in and out of consciousness. Murray pushed me up, saying something about a horse. There are other wounded. They should have the horse, but he insisted.

A hand appeared on mine, jarring me. I stared at it. The fingers were long, the hand narrow, and the arm they connected to lean, wiry. Where had the hand come from? Murray wasn’t that tall, and he was a lot stockier, closer to my own build. Then I realized that ever-present scratching had stopped when my hand did. Had I been making that noise? It seemed so.

“Watson, answer me.” The voice had a clear note of worry in it, now, and I wondered why. It surely wasn’t for me. “Watson!”

 _“What?”_ My eyes landed on the journal in front of me. Right, I had been writing. That explained why I currently felt so light. The weight that had been hanging on me all day had finally lifted, and I began putting away my pen and notebook, wondering when Holmes was due home. Perhaps he had finished the case he had been working on. It had certainly been an interesting one, and I had been disappointed when the call from the hospital had come, demanding extra help on a day I had planned to take off.

“Watson, you’re in London.”

 _“Of course, I’m in London. Where else would I be?”_ Now, where had I left my case notes? I could while away the time until Holmes returned going over the pertinent facts of the case. If he needed a sounding board on his return, I would be of no use unable to recall anything about the case.

“Watson!” This time, a hand landed firmly on my arm and stayed there, startling me out of my search for my case journal.

I spun around. _“Oh, hello, Holmes. When did you get in?”_ Only then did I notice the worry in his gaze. _“I say, is something wrong?”_

He studied me a moment without answering, his worried gaze taking in every detail of my appearance, and I wondered what he was thinking. Had something happened and he simply didn’t know how to tell me?

_“Holmes, what’s wrong?”_

He frowned worriedly. “Watson, I can’t understand you. You’re safe in London. You’ve been living here for over nineteen years.” I frowned, wondering why he was going through the facts we had established would break me out of a hypnagogic regression when I hadn’t had one in several years, as he continued, “I am a consulting detective—”

 _“Holmes, I know all this. I’m fine.”_ The strangeness hit again. Something about my words was different than his words, and I ignored him for a moment as I followed that thought. How were my words different than his? They were words, and they made sense.

They did make sense, right? I thought over them again. Yes, they made sense. So why was the worry in Holmes’ gaze increasing?

“Watson, what languages are you speaking?”

 _“What do you mean ‘what languages’—”_ Oh. Suddenly, the strangeness made sense. Not again! I put my head in my hands with a groan. I hadn’t slipped that badly since the first week of my marriage.

 _“Veniam peto_ —I mean. My apologies, Holmes,” I muttered from behind my hands. I felt him relax a bit.

“Watson? Are you back, now?” His hand remained firmly on my good arm, despite its change in position, and I forced my words to match his.

“I never left. I hadn’t done that in years!”

“You never left?” he repeated. “Then what—?”

He broke off, but I knew what he was getting at. “I have always been able to switch easily between languages. It is a quality of many writers, I suppose, as I’ve heard of others doing it as well. After writing for the last—” I glanced at the mantle clock, “three hours, I am not surprised I switched languages, but I usually respond in whatever language I hear.” Three hours? That certainly explained the cramp in my hand.

“Then you should have responded in English when I first came in,” he told me, some of the worry still in his otherwise impenetrable gaze.

“How long?”

“Nearly thirty minutes,” was his answer, and a flicker of worry skittered across his face at the memory. “I thought—never mind that. You are alright?”

I nodded firmly. “Of course. I just lost myself in—in what I was writing and mixed up my languages.”

He noticed my hesitation, of course. “And what about your writing are you trying to avoid telling me?”

Instead of answering, I replied with a question of my own. “You didn’t know I knew languages other than English, did you?”

Discomfort flit across his gaze as he moved back into a seat while I turned my desk chair around, and I grinned. “You didn’t!”

“Alright, alright.” He was distinctly uncomfortable by this point, hating to admit that we had found something about me that he hadn’t known, and squirmed slightly in his seat. “No, I did not know you knew anything other than English and some Hindustani. Are you happy, now?”

I chuckled. “Quite. Now tell me, did you solve the case?” If I moved the topic along quickly enough, there was a much lesser chance that he would come back to what I had been writing.

He refused to be distracted, however. “And what is it you are trying to hide from me?”

 _“Nihil—”_ I caught myself as the worry that had remained on his face now mixed with amusement, “I mean, nothing, of course. You were working on a case this morning when I was called away. How did it go?”

“Watson, just as prevaricating does not become you, so too are you unable to smoothly change the topic. What were you writing that had you so engrossed you did not hear me enter? Not even one of those disgustingly romantic novels you are so fond of has that capability.”

He stared at me, no doubt reading much of what I was thinking as I decided how to answer him. I never liked to draw attention to when the memories had a pull on me, and he knew that. However, after the first time I had had a hypnagogic regression in front of him and he had asked how he could help, I had found myself promising to let him know if I thought one was possible. I wasn’t about to go back on my word, but _was_ one possible? I hadn’t thought so, but…

He spoke before I could make up my mind. “The date.” There was apology in his gaze now. “That’s why you were writing of the war. Are you—?”

He broke off, unwilling to voice his worry, but I knew what he had been about to ask. “I’m fine, now. The writing helped.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You weren’t here.” I hoped my face didn’t betray that I had been thankful he wasn’t here, but considering how many times he had told me how easy I was to read, I knew the hope was probably unfounded.

“No, no,” He waved the sentence aside. “I mean earlier. You obviously haven’t been sleeping well, but you never said anything.”

I shrugged. “We went over that years ago, Holmes.” How I hated how much my words caused him to deflate, but he would know if I tried to brush it off just to spare him. I _had_ warned him after that first one that I was unlikely to say anything unless it got bad enough my promise made me speak. I had promised to tell him if I saw it coming, but usually I was able to dissipate the memories before it came to that point, as I had just done. There hadn’t been anything I had promised to tell the night before, the last time we had spoken, nor that morning, the last time I had seen him. I would have had no problem today if it hadn’t been for the boating accident and the primary age of the victims.

The worry still in his gaze now mixed with guilt. “I should have seen it. You haven’t been sleeping well for over a week. When—?” He broke off again, his discomfort obvious to me. This conversation was quickly entering a realm foreign to him. His persistence showed his regard for me, but I determined to give him a way out. We did not need to discuss this. I could handle it.

“Only a couple of days, Holmes. I’m fine. Tell me about the case. Was the groom behind it as you thought?”

“Forget the blasted case, Watson! It doesn’t matter near as much as the fact that I came home to find you unresponsive for the first time in six years!”

I stared at him, surprised he would stubbornly stay in an uncomfortable conversation instead of telling me about the murder investigation Lestrade had brought to him four nights ago. I knew he cared about me in his own way, but Holmes despised any kind of emotional conversation. The topic of war and how it had affected me had always had highly emotional undertones, and I knew he would quickly find the conversation too awkward to continue. And that was alright; I could handle it alone. I didn’t need to burden him with my struggles.

“How many times do I have to ask, Watson, before you’ll let me help?” he asked softly, staring at me, showing me he was in earnest while, I’m sure, reading my thoughts.

Why would he want the details? They were just that: details. I refused to give them any power over the present, and years of trial and error had taught me multiple ways of dealing with them to avoid another regression. The last—and first—regression he had witnessed had been shortly after his return in ’94, and I had hit upon the writing idea when I had seen one coming in ’97 when Holmes had been away on a case on the continent.

“You promised you would tell me if you saw it coming,” he spoke again. “I just talked to you last night, and you never said anything, despite a week or more of nightmares, so either something happened today that brought it on, or you refused to acknowledge the warning signs. Which is it?”

I sighed. “There was a boating accident on the canal this morning. A small ship drifted into a group of young men swimming. Combined with the dry heat and the date…” I trailed off, but I had said enough.

“And the writing?”

I stared into the empty fireplace as I reluctantly answered, not looking at Holmes making it easier to pretend I wasn’t saying this aloud. I rarely spoke about the war or its effects. “Putting the memories on paper has a cleansing effect. There’s an element of control to it that nullifies the more…captivating effects of the recurring memories. A regression can be channeled through a pen into paper in such a way that I avoid the difficult and disorienting snap back into the present.”

I knew he remembered the first—only—major regression he had seen in its entirety. Mrs. Hudson had left bread out to rise, and Holmes had been working on an experiment involving blood with which he hoped to replace the blood test he had developed in ’81. The combination of scents had brought the wrong memories to the fore, and before I had been able to retreat to my rooms, one of Holmes’ beakers had cracked with a sound resembling a gunshot. The sound had immediately sent me back to Maiwand, to that gruesome battle, and I had reacted accordingly when I saw a hand coming for my shoulder. Only after I registered Holmes’ frantic voice had I snapped out of it, and then into such disorientation it took another several minutes for me to gain my bearings and realize I had given Holmes a black eye for his troubles. I had been so horrified I had injured him—no matter how minor the injury—I had nearly moved back to the Kensington house I hadn’t yet sold. The resulting argument had eventually morphed into a conversation beginning with him asking how he could help that lasted half the night. In the end, we had worked out what he would need to do and what he would need to avoid doing should it ever happen again, and I had continued with the sale of the Kensington house.

“So the heat of the last couple of weeks precipitated the memories, and the boating accident brought them to the fore.” He glanced over me again as he continued, “You walked slowly home, taking a circuitous route through Hyde Park, arriving here three hours ago, at which point you started writing to channel what the walk had failed to address. Are you going to tell me how the languages play into it?”

I turned back to him, amused both at the stream of deductions and his petulance with the languages. “I have picked up several languages over the years. You commented once how my accent changes when I’m tired; my language can change when I am distracted.”

He considered this a moment. “What languages were you speaking?”

I shrugged. “You tell me. I thought I was speaking English.”

He repeated a word I recognized as “country,” though it took me a moment to place the language and translate the word to English. My mind still refused to remain in one language.

“That means ‘country’ in Farsi.” He repeated several others. “Pashto, Latin, more Farsi, and a few tribal dialects.”

He thought about that list for a moment, concluding, “Pashto, Farsi, and the tribal dialects because of the location. The Latin would be from your medical training. But why not answer me in English?”

Hidden deeply under that question was the worry and, perhaps, fear that had invaded when I first ignored his presence and then, when I did acknowledge him, answered only in a language or group of languages he had no way of identifying. No wonder he had thought me in the midst of a major regression.

“Because I barely heard your questions, Holmes, and most of my focus was on the events I was writing. Writing channels it in such a way I avoid the disorientation, both during and after, but it doesn’t prevent the…” I paused, searching for the word I needed, “preoccupation inherent in the reliving of the memories themselves. I knew on some level that I was sitting at my desk, which is why I came out of it without a problem, but if I had answered your question regarding where I was aloud, my answer would have been in whatever town in which that memory had taken place. So when I did answer your questions, I spoke in the language to match where most of my attention resided.”

“And you learned those languages in the year or so you were in Afghanistan?”

“Some of them.”

He sat back in his seat, staring at me in some astonishment. “What other languages do you know?”

I tried to affect a look of confusion. “I never said I knew others.”

He relaxed slightly. We were back in more familiar territory. “No, you said you had only learned some of those languages in Afghanistan. Therefore, you learned at least one before you joined the army, and since it is hardly easy to find someone to teach a language spoken four thousand miles from here, it stands to reason you would know others.”

“I could have been referring to the Latin I learned in medical school,” I pointed out.

“If you had learned the various Afghan languages in Afghanistan, you would have said as much, instead of replying that you had learned ‘some of them,’” he insisted. “Did you know Pashto or Farsi before enlisting?” Relaxing more into the conversation, he stretched his long arm up to the mantle, picked up his pipe, and started filling it.

“Farsi,” I answered with a sigh. “One of the town elders had immigrated when he was a boy, and he taught me.”

“And how many other languages do you know?”

Right. I would only have bothered to learn Farsi if I already knew other, more local, languages. I thought for a moment, debating how much of the love—nay, obsession—of languages I had known since childhood that I wanted to admit.

“Come, now, Watson,” he spoke again as he got his pipe drawing to his satisfaction. “In how many languages are you fluent or nearly fluent?”

There was no way he would let the subject drop now. “Fifteen,” I muttered.

He nearly dropped his pipe in his surprise. “And you neglected to mention this, why?”

I couldn’t stop my slow grin at his disgruntled expression. “I suppose it never came up before now,” was my answer.

“Never came up! This would have been good to know the last time we travelled over the continent!”

I laughed outright. He had refused to allow me a word in edgewise at the time, no matter in what language I tried to speak, but I saw no benefit in pointing that out. “But then I would never have gotten to see how good you are at miming, Holmes.”

“Watson!”

The ensuing conversation is probably one best not committed to paper, but it did end with Holmes eventually steering us back to the original topic, and _that_ conversation is one I do not need to write down to always remember. Brain without a heart, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is greatly appreciated on all my stories :D


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